Thursday, December 27, 2007

An overdue farewell

I've been negligent to my blog...sorry. I've been home for almost two months now, and have been so visiting friends all over Arizona and California that I haven't had a chance to write my last blog entry. So, now that Christmas is over and everyone is comatose fromm too much food, I'll take this opportunity to wrap this thing up...

The last few months were busy finishing up projects with the kids, final youth group meetings and a pump test that the local water utility was very generous to donate for my thesis work...here are the guys who did two and a half days of work for me...

And the exciting part of a pump test...which you can see is about as fun as watching water flow out of a pipe all day:

So, turning to more interesting things - here are some photos from some of my despedidas - or farewell parties:

We arranged a trip to the zoo with the school kids for one final hurrah while I was there...here are the kids and moms piled into the truck to take us there:

Kids from the group I helped lead on a trip through the zoo...and the monkeys hoping for a cheeto from the kids:

After the education tour, there were several dancing numbers by some of the kids, speeches, and a little gift exchange.

A final shot of the kids and moms I worked with:

I made it to the opening season game for the Chicas Lakers - they awarded me the trophy we had one at a recent tournament:

And my good friend, and teammate, Ada planned a farewell party for me after the game:

This is my mixed origin group of friends - Nicaraguan, US, Swedish, and Finnish at one of our last get togethers:

So, that's about it. Guense and I left the country without any hang ups on November 2nd, as was lucky enough to have some good Peace Corps friends see me off at the airport. I have talked to a number of my friends back in Nicaragua...they are as gracious as ever and are really looking forward to my return (Spring break 2008)...

Hi Essa! I am so glad I got a chance to read your blog and thanks so much for sharing! I am going to be a PC trainee this May and would love to chat with you more about your experience over there! Here is my email: chao.joanna@gmail.com

Hello I just entered before I have to leave to the airport, it's been very nice to meet you, if you want here is the site I told you about where I type some stuff and make good money (I work from home): here it is

Hello I just entered before I have to leave to the airport, it's been very nice to meet you, if you want here is the site I told you about where I type some stuff and make good money (I work from home): here it is

Hello I just entered before I have to leave to the airport, it's been very nice to meet you, if you want here is the site I told you about where I type some stuff and make good money (I work from home): here it is

Sorry to bother you. My name is Ray Blakney and I am a RPCV from Mexico. I am working on a 3rd goal project with the PC regional offices and the main office in DC to try to create an online archive to keep the language training material made all over the world from getting lost. I have created a sub-section on the website my wife and I run - http://www.livelingua.com - with all the information I have been able to get to date (from over the web and sent to me directly by PC staff and PCV's). I currently have close to 100 languages with ebooks, audios and even some videos.

The next step for this project is that I am trying to get the world out about this resource so that it can not only be used by PCV's or those accepted into the Peace Corps, but also so that when people run across material that is not on the site they can send it to me and I can get it up for everybody to use. I was hoping that you could help getting the word out by putting a link on this on your site at:

http://essanicapc.blogspot.com/

so that people know it is there. There should be something there for almost everybody. It is all 100% free to use and share. Here is the specific page of the Peace Corps Archive:

http://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-language-courses.php

Thanks for any help you can provide in making this 3rd goal project a success. And if anybody in your group has some old material they can scan or already have in digital form, and want to add to the archive, please don't hesitate to pass them my email. Thanks and have a great day.